Hitting The Links: 10/22/23
Barcelona & me then & now, + lots of linkery
He’s from Barcelona
I’m in Barcelona for a trade show this week. We got in yesterday morning, waited ~45 minutes on line at passport control, and got to our amazing last-minute hotel. Our plan for accommodations fell through on Thursday evening, necessitating finding a hotel during a massive trade show; I opted for scenic over ease-of-access to mass transit, which I’m sure I’ll regret during the 50-minute walks in dress shoes & suit back from the Fira in the evenings, but that’s my stylish cross to bear.
“We” as in, Amy came along on this trip. For some reason, she wasn’t interested in coming along to last year’s version of this show, which was in Frankfurt. (That said, she’s already checked off the calendar for next year’s edition in Milan.) Because she actually plans things, it means I’ll get to see some of the interior of the Sagrada Familia on this trip, unlike the last time I was here.
“Last time I was here” as in the 2016 of this trade show, which is funny because my only last-minute “I should take this” bit of packing (I mean, I packed 1 hour before leaving the house, but this was the thing I grabbed at the top of the stairs) was A Year And A Day, the new book of essays by Phillip Lopate. That one collects Phillip’s year-long blog experiment for The American Scholar, from 2016, and one of the first questions I wrote down was, “What was it like revisiting your 2016 self for this book?”, and now I have to try to recall who I was when I was last walking this city. It was early October, so pre-election, which means my brain was wired differently.
If I start really diving into that snapshot of Gil, instead of just looking at my snapshots from that trip, this email will grow into something far longer but much more boring than Proust, so here’s a pic from last night’s view of Porto Vell from our terrace.
And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Lisa Morton • Daniel Clowes • Rachel Shteir • Patrick McDonnell • Keith Knight • Brett Martin • Peter Rostovsky
RIP Suzanne Somers . . . RIP Burt Young . . .
Remembrance of Louise Glück from a passel of writers, incl. Henri Cole.
EEE! New Celia Paul has a new exhibition in Venice! I should change my flight back from Barcelona so I can attend the opening! (I won’t but I should.)
“Today culture remains capable of endless production, but it’s far less capable of change.” Interesting piece by Jason Farago on the cultural stasis of this century. The hero turns out to be Amy Winehouse. Before you read this, you should listen to my conversation w/W. David Marx and read his Status And Culture.
Also, I’ll note that when he says he can’t see any differentiating fashion of the present moment while looking at Met-goers, he might be not be noticing my biggest fashion bête noire of our fallen time: sneakers (dress or otherwise) with suits.
Speaking of politicos, this piece on the fashion choices of the politicians in NZ’s Maori Party make me feel like we’re in a William Gibson novel, but I guess it’s more resonant with Pynchon’s depictions of the Hereros adopting the garb of their German genocidaires.
Also speaking of fashion, I liked reading about Nick Wooster’s morning routine.
Apparently, Barnes & Noble is getting freaky w/store design & branding. (The article also mentions that they’re opening a big-ol’ store in Paramus, NJ, near where their great one with the used books section closed.)
Neat interview with James McMullan about his contribution to the 60th anniversary issue of the New York Review of Books.
Liz Hand wrote about Shirley Jackson in the Guardian. Liz & I were supposed to record another go-’round this summer at Readercon in advance of her new novel, A Haunting On The Hill, which is an authorized sequel to Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, but a weather emergency meant she had to head home early. Grr, because it’s an awfully good novel and I’d have loved to talk with Liz about that project and Jackon’s influence on her career. We still can, but it would’ve been cool to do that before Halloween, y’know?
A former Marine sniper interviews a Ukrainian sniper about the morality of killing. It’s fascinating and may, on multiple levels, also be triggering.
Current/Recent Reading
Mason & Dixon - Thomas Pynchon
A Year And A Day: An Experiment In Essays - Phillip Lopate
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
I managed 4 out of 5 workouts last week, missing day 1 (Friday) because of travel. I’m currently nowhere on this week’s cycle: too busy with work, packing and other stuff on Friday to get in my weights, too busy trying to stay awake Saturday after getting into Barcelona on the redeye, although Amy & I did manage 8+ miles of walks that day. Unless I can make something happen in the hotel fitness center today, I think we’re just gonna write this week off, as well as next Friday, while I’m in transit. Hope I don’t turn into a blob, but I suspect I’ll be doing so much walking, especially once the trade show starts, that I’ll come home 5 lbs. lighter than when I left.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back Wednesday with a new podcast, maybe some art, & who knows maybe a little profundity or something, and Sunday with more great links, current reading, and this broken down ol’ body of mine.
Open your heart, open your mind / A train is leaving all day,
—Gil Roth
Virtual Memories
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